An experiential journey of life through the eyes of a Druid…..

St Walstan & The Malt Loaf

It’s funny how as you get older – (and I’m another year older this month), how your internal tolerance level changes. We eat only an organic diet, we eat with the seasons and have baked all our own bread for the last seventeen years. We don’t buy cakes or any sweet stuffs, preferring to create and bake.

Yesterday my husband baked an organic malt loaf containing scrummy sultanas – it looked extremely tempting so I had one piece. Oh my, within an hour of eating it I suffered terrible stomach ache and sadly was awake with upper gastric pain the whole of the night.

This morning I got out of bed and could not even face breakfast because of the pain, so I ate something light and simple and set out on my way to visit a pilgrim place here in Norfolk, about 8 miles away from where I live.Upon finding the particular site, I still felt a terrible discomfort in my abdomen but realised after I’d filmed the short accompanying video that the gripes had miraculously disappeared! My stomach felt calm and back to normal.

Coincidence? Who knows, but one thing we do know is that the site I was visiting was St Walstan’s well, known for centuries to be a place for mass healing.

Born in to a wealthy family in 970AD in Bawbugh (or possibly Blythburgh in Suffolk), St Walstan didn’t want the trappings of wealth after he experienced many visions, so he become a farm labourer. He disposed of his possessions and noble garments and gave most of his earnings from working on a Taverham farm to the poor and needy, keeping only 2 white oxen.

It is said that Walstan even foresaw his own death in Taverham. St Walstan died in 1016 and upon his instruction it is said that a cart pulled by the two white oxen took his body from Taverham back to his home place at Bawburgh. On the journey the oxen rested, one resting place being Costessey, a spring appeared soon afterwards known as The Roundwell.

Where his body came to lay to rest in Bawburgh sprung another holy spring which is the place at which I’m writing this blog. This later became a shrine to St Walstan but under the reign of Henry VIII was reduced to little more than rubble.

In secret, during this troubled time, farmers would take their ailing cattle to the well and later in 1818 a man named Frances Bunn was cured of leg ulcers and another account tells of a local man who’s mare was full of skin sores. He was going to have the mare put to sleep until his farmhand took some water from the well and bathed the horse. Ten days later she was back to full health.

There have been many unexplained and miraculous healings over the centuries from blindness, to diabetes at St Walstan’s well and today, I experienced my very own.

DirectionsIt’s easy to find if you know where to look as the well is on private property.

In Bawburgh you need to locate the church, on Church Lane would you believe! Park at the church. It’s about a five minute easy walk from here. Out of the car you will see a sign ‘Church Farm Barns, Private Property, Leave Access’, on your left. Walk down the driveway and you will pass a barn conversion on your right with fields on your left. The drive bends to the right, follow this and at the bottom you will see the sign ‘To St Walstan’s Well’.

Please do visit and let me know of your experiences by leaving comments on this thread below.